The Great Salad Caper

This month's Crazy Ingredient Challenge was an easy one for me to come up with something yummy to make. I heard the ingredients were capers and cantaloupe and for some reason I immediately thought of a watermelon and feta cheese salad. I knew I could do something similar with my fresh melon and salty capers and I also knew from eating watermelon and feta salad that my dish would be great.

So thanks to Dawn from Spatulas on Parade for helping me come up with a great new dish, my Cucumber and Cantaloupe Salad with Crispy Capers. I would never have thought of it without this month's Crazy Ingredient Challenge. 

Minted - Christmas Cards and More!

I know many of us are busy focusing on back to school right now, but it's also creeping closer to my favourite holiday season and it will soon be time to think about planning Christmas and holiday cards. It might sound too soon to some of you, but I know I start receiving cards at the beginning of December which means they must have been mailed in mid November, must have been personalized in early November, and in homes ready to go in October. It's going to be September in a just a few short weeks, so it's now time to start planning to stay ahead of the game!

Minted is a new website that I've just discovered and I am loving Minted's beautiful Christmas photo cards. I also love that choosing Minted cards means supporting independent designers and that the cards are reasonably priced. 

One of my favourite of Minted's Christmas photo cards is the template below. You can customize your photo card with five of your own photos and choose from a selection of colours for the background too.  I love this card because I love to include a simple holiday recipe in my Christmas cards and I would love to include a photo of my recipe as one of the photos. 

This year I am thinking about including a recipe for a simple Christmas fruit salad in my Christmas cards. Read on for my recipe and for a few great holiday gift ideas from Minted!

The Thrill of the Grill

I've told before that I love grilling, but I know I've never told you about grilling scallops. Because scallops are so small, especially bay scallops, I've never wanted to run the risk of trying to grill them and losing some of the sweet little treasures through the grates into the coals below.

But that's all changed now because I came up with an awesome and truly simple idea. I threaded bay scallops into skewers and grilled them like kabobs. It was so simple and, since I've never had a better scallop before, I know I'll be grilling scallop kabobs for appys all through the summer! 

Cold and Fresh

Summer is here and to me this means it's time to entertain friends. I love to entertain and I always want to serve something memorable, but it's hard to find the time to make memorable things. 

Today's recipe is a drink that's perfect for summer entertaining because it has only a few ingredients and it's cold and fresh! Plus, it isn't too much work because you make all the drinks in one big batch and you can do it all ahead of time!

Well, I guess it's more work than chilling and opening a bottle of wine, but who's going to remember that?